


Blue

by hazk



Series: Limbo [7]
Category: Red vs. Blue
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, During "Deadlocked", Gen, Injury, Mental Instability, Season/Series 15, Writing Exercise
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-13
Updated: 2019-05-13
Packaged: 2020-03-02 17:34:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,482
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18815725
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hazk/pseuds/hazk
Summary: “…You’re not real.”





	Blue

**Author's Note:**

> Takes place during Chapter 4 of “Deadlocked”, which you might want to read first. (I'll never get tired of this.)

 

 _“_ _– SPACE COMMAND. ETA FOURTEEN MINUTES. IF THERE IS NO REPLY –“_

“H-how the fuck…”

He stirred at the booming voice, just barely able to register the other it was almost drowning out. They were both close, the voices, but one was more human. Shaking and emotional.

Familiar.

“The UNSC… What do they think they can…“

He couldn't make out the words, being deafened by the layers upon layers of disorienting sounds. The machinery. The whispers.

Static.

_“– GOAL IS TO DESTROY THE TARGET. POWERSURGES WITHIN THE AREA SHOW *static* SIGNS OF *static* DISRUPTIONS –“_

“Right.”

_"- IF *static* THERE IS NO -"_

Too much static.

_“– NO SURVIVORS –“_

“…of course.”

That was the moment he woke up enough to realize who he was, barely so.

Grif tried to open his eyes, but the lights were too bright. The flashes made his vision swim, making it impossible for him to focus on his surroundings.

To force himself further awake, he bit down on his tongue hard enough to bleed. He had already been tasting blood, though.

Grif needed to wake up. Think. Where was he. It had to be. Bad.

But the machine, whatever it was – _the bomb, was there, wasn't there?_ – kept whirring, too loud, and the ground shook, and the static made him wish he could knock himself right out again, just to get rid of it.

Focusing, Grif could hear his own breathing through the noise, ragged as it was.

The ground shook more, and his armor kept holding him down. Fighting the pull, Grif tried to straighten, to lift his head as he began to register how badly his neck was cramping. 

His head hurt, at an ever increasing rate, and his body wouldn’t listen. The radio screaming in his ear was making him feel no better, though he still couldn’t quite catch what it was trying to tell him.

_“– TWELVE *static* IF THERE IS NO –“_

Finally, Grif managed to force an eye open again and, despite his blurred vision, he was quick to realize his visor was cracked. Through the crack, he saw a shadow stood against the lights that flashed in warning as the machinery there shook and beeped, making the entire room a part of whatever it was doing.

The shadow, though. The shadow was blue.

Blue armor, and its familiar blue hue.

Church but not Church, because Church was dead and not someone Grif should be worried about right now, only later. Earlier.

This was the blue Grif had chased, or maybe let chase him; it was the blue Grif had seen in the muzzle flare, and suddenly the pain was starting to make sense.

Grif coughed, some emotion he couldn’t quite place settling in as suddenly the blue armor swirled its head around, appearing to search the room. The armor didn’t make a sound, and Grif found himself holding his breath as if to keep out of its sight.

_“– UNITED NATIONS *static* COMMAND –“_

The armor stopped, its head pointed his way.

It stared, meeting Grif’s one eyed gaze with its own, both unnerving in their lack of expression as the machine’s lights kept dying the room with bright color. Grif couldn’t make out the features of who he was looking at, the blurring and the blue too strong, familiar, against the light and the shadows further twisting his vision.

But what he could feel - feel, not see, because he didn't once look away from blue's face - was how blue’s hands curled in anger as it watched him. It made Grif pull himself back, inching closer to the wall behind him, though he still couldn't properly fight the armor's weight to do so.

As if to respond to Grif’s movement, blue turned its body around to fully face him, then took a step. And another.

The blue armor stumbled toward him, and for once in his life Grif wanted nothing more than to run and never stop.

_"– POWERSURGES *static* AREA SHOW –“_

With all his energy, Grif forced an arm up to gesture at the armor to stop in its approach, never expecting it to work but lacking any other option with the way his entire body shook with effort just from keeping his eye open.

Not threatened by the sluggish wave, the blue armor only stopped right at his feet and stared some more. Grif tried to open his mouth, but he still couldn't speak. His mouth was dry and with every second he felt himself slipping further, unable to remember who he was, where, what –

Drifting in and out of consciousness, every second felt like an eternity, yet not enough time at all -

Blue spoke, its voice barely a whisper as it said:

“Biff…”

Grif could only stare and, as if slapped, blue took a step away from him. He watched the shadows back away along with blue's retreat, and he had never felt so lost.

“Yeah, well…” blue mumbled, the armor's fist clenching as Grif continued to hold his breath. Blue turned its face away, its own breath ragged and every word said with effort: “Life’s… Life's pretty fucked so you… you might as well get used to that much… at least…”

There was another moment, with Grif’s vision blurring a bit more, enough for him to let his head slump down and drift away before he could hear blue speak again.

“Biff”, blue repeated, sounding almost desperate to catch his attention, at least to Grif’s bleeding ears. He sighed in reply, just because that's all he could do.

Blue’s body shifted, curled, towered closer over him as it suddenly screamed with enough force to snap Grif straight out of his near-death slumber:

“What, _what the fuck_ , am I supposed to do!?”

With a sharp movement, blue’s hands flew up and reached for its hair, taking a hold of the short strands there hard enough for Grif to register some empathy at how much the hold must have hurt. A second, maybe two, later blue let its chin drop.

Through his brow, unable to move his neck, Grif lifted his startled eyes to meet blue's, and could not look away. That's when he first registered its eyes.

Blue’s eyes weren't quite blue, closer to gray, and sunken so deep that the shadows alone should have been enough to drown them out entirely.

Grif was leaning to his side. He could feel himself slipping.

The armor was too heavy, and he was too weak, and blue’s glare was getting worse with each second it didn't look away from him. Still unable to speak, Grif tried to move his arms again, forcing his fingers to cooperate and then pushing them to the side, letting his arms drop off his lap to support him when blue didn’t make a move.

Grif did not plead. He was not scared. He was too tired to be anything but _here_ , and even that he only did part-way.

He was dying, Grif was pretty sure, which is why he used what energy he had to turn his face up to more steadily meet blue’s; to challenge him, the only way he could.

“Better stay calm?” blue said with a breathless scoff. Grif registered his head tilting, not in confusion but at the lack of control over his muscles, just sure to keep his eyes at blue despite the change in angle.

“R-right…” Still talking, lost in his own world, blue let out a breath and, slowly, lifted its hand to rub at its eyes. It repeated, in whisper, but now with a little more strength: “Right.”

Grif felt a shiver run up his spine, one among many, when blue let out a strangled laugh and nodded its head.

“Sure.”

Grif's body was shaking too much and, just for a moment, everything was dark again.

 

* * *

 

When Grif regained the few senses he had left, he was startled to see blue sit right in front of him, the gray eyes a little close to his cracked visor. Grif tried to pull his head back, but there was no space for him to regain even if he had managed.

Blue’s eyes did not blink, or even seem to register his movement. Instead, he rapidly kept speaking:

“- finish this. There’s still a chance, and this couldn't have all been for nothing! Yeah, I fucked up, _the delay fucked it all up_ , but… You…”

Blue’s words cut short and he flinched back, just a little, his mouth shutting in a sharp movement. His expression did not shift as he blinked, though, his eyes fully focused on the crack in Grif’s visor and staring right at his one visible eye.

“Wouldn’t come as a surprise, really…?” blue whispered with something akin to a snort following the words. “But no. I am not.”

While blue's voice had grown somewhat steadier than it had been before, Grif’s body was shaking even more. He knew he was done for, especially with the way blue started glaring at him as he continued:

“I am doing this for you. So.”

Grif’s head dropped forward and blue only pulled back enough to keep his eyes on him, his teeth audibly gritting in discomfort as he did. “And what about it, even if I was?!” he snapped, his shoulders squared, and Grif attempted, he really did, to open his mouth and tell him to fuck off with his bullshit already.

If he was going to die, this was not how he wanted it to go down. Not with blue and his insanity, at least let it be his own –

_Temple._

“…what conversation?”

_Blue’s name was Temple._

“That's…”

Grif was almost pleased to have finally made the connection, to have a name for the face he still couldn’t make out. And wasn't it just precious, to see blue - _Temple_ \- reduced to whatever the hell this was.

Unaware of Grif's realization, Temple scoffed to himself and crossed his arms almost childishly, the action only heightened by the way he tightened his hold around the bulk of his armor and finally avoided Grif’s eye. There was heavy breathing, not only Grif’s, as the two of them sat there without a word.

Grif knew now that they were not in the same reality, as it were; a part of him too familiar with it to not see just what was happening to Temple, despite his lack of life and all related brain function.

“You did. You said it. You wanted me to fucking shoot you, even when you knew _I could never do that –!”_

Grif wanted to disagree - just for the sake of it, as his obvious gunshot wound throbbed in pain - but even if he could have, there had been no time. Because that was when they both began to fall apart, starting out with Temple's rambling making less and less sense with each misplaced sentence:

“Not the same… conversation… Biff had to get out, he asked me to help him, and I…. He signed up for me, even when he knew it wasn’t going to work out… I didn’t listen. He wanted to get me, _you_ , out, too, when we started… But I was set on the… the Blue versus Red… thing… that you would still get a fucking parade, for, or… some shit…"

Temple didn’t look at Grif, but his expression was breaking, angry, as he continued to whisper words not meant for Grif’s ears. He only paused for a second, before weakly saying:

“I… I wanted to leave the Gulch, though.”

Temple began to uncurl himself, shifting on his knees almost as if to begin to pull away, and some subconscious part of Grif found the energy to panic at the idea of being left behind. Reflexive to make a move, he managed to do the impossible and reached out.

With a shaking hand, Grif gripped Temple’s shoulder.

Temple stilled, though his eyes did widen in what appeared to be shock. His breath hitched, but instead of pulling away, he launched into another rant:

“I did want to, though! Sure, I wanted to be a, a soldier, but the Gulch, it was pointless, the standstill, Biff had to go, and if you had left, there would have been nothing for me there, so of course I, I would have wanted to leave with you, too, just like, like, like, you did, for me, back then, when -

"It wasn’t for you,  _Biff_ , he chose to leave… me…”

Grif hissed in pain, which rendered Temple silent. Still mostly frozen in place, only Temple's hands were left to shake where he had them on his lap.

"I… It… Speaks like a poet… The hero, no clue what’s happening… Eats up his words…” Half the words were unintelligible, slurred, must have been - even to someone not in Grif's state.

But whatever Temple was saying, must have meant the end of his world: He looked up in fear, sharply turning his full attention back to what was in front of him. Not Grif.

Never Grif.

“No. Come on, Biff, it doesn’t matter what I, _you_ , said –!”

Temple flinched and finally tried to pull back but, though weak, it appeared he could not tear himself away from the hold Grif had on his shoulder.

“You said that,” Temple didn’t even blink as he rambled on and on: “I know –!“ He shook his head, fighting back whatever it was he was hearing despite having momentarily closed his own mouth.

All Grif heard was the repeating message from the UNSC, telling him he was dead even if the gunshot, and Temple, didn't get him first. That's what he got for letting his curiosity lead him; some small part reminding him to hope the others, Reds and Blues, had made it out.

With or without his help.

“Y-you did say all that, it was right before the –!”

Temple's mouth snapped shut again, just for a second before his voice turned into yet another, continuous stream of small words that Grif had long since become unable to keep up with at all, his arm finally falling off of Temple and uselessly hitting the floor.

"Biff… W-what the fuck? You, the UNSC – not you… Asked me to shoot you! This, this isn't, I'm not… Dragged you down, with me…"

Barely breathing, Grif head lolled to the side. Drifting off. Somewhere far away, and who knows how much time later, Temple quieted down, the pause followed by a small snort.

“…You’re not real”, Temple whispered. “Y-you’re already dead.”

Grif didn’t register the fall when he had been pushed over, but the way his head hit the floor did shake him awake for a second longer, only for Temple to say:

“You don’t… don’t know what you’re talking… about…”

Grif let out a pained grunt. He wasn’t aware of how badly the sound, matched with a splatter of fresh blood, had scared Temple, having sent him sprawling straight into the hold of their savior.

_“– COMMAND. ETA SEVEN MINUTES. IF THERE IS NO –“_

 

**Author's Note:**

> Limbo of no control, no progress, no improvement; the colors of the sky and sadness.


End file.
